Tuesday, May 28, 2013

New York Off-Broadway Buzz: Not-To-Be-Missed Shows, May-June 2013

Alonso & Cerveris, Nikolai (photo:
Paul Kolnik)

By Jacquelin Carnegie –
(New York, NY)

With
immigration reform under debate, it's interesting to see how it's reflected on
stage. These plays portray immigrants at different ends of the spectrum, in
America and other places, who've left their homelands with diverse motivations:
seeking freedom of expression; looking for a better life; fleeing war and
oppression.

Forced to choose between working under the confines of
Lenin's oppressive Communist regime or staying true to their own modernistic
ideas, many of the 20th century's greatest artists fled Russia for the West. In
this play, Russian émigrés, and old friends, choreographer George Balanchine
(beautifully played by Michael Cerveris), composer Igor Stravinsky (John
Glover), painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin (Alvin Epstein), actor Vladimir Sokoloff
(John Procaccino), conductor Serge Koussevitsky (Dale Place), and composer and
Mr-Fix-It Nikolai Nabokov, Vladimir's cousin (Stephen
Kunken) spend a weekend together in a country home in Westport, Connecticut.
It's 1948 and most of them have already become American citizens, yet, as they
reminisce, there's bittersweet nostalgia for the homeland that denied them the
freedom to create the masterpieces that have rendered them famous. The most
fabulous perk: watching Stravinsky and Balanchine create their famous ballet "Orpheus"--if
you ever wondered what that experience was like, this is your chance to imagine.

Presented by The Play
Company, this
is a very cool piece of theater about poor, undocumented kitchen help in an
Asian restaurant in an unspecified time and place. Stunningly staged, directed,
and choreographed, this gifted group
of actors
as immigrants looking for a better life, yet trapped by their circumstance,
will move you to laughter and tears.

Tony Award®
winning playwright John Guare always has something fascinating up his
sleeve. This time, it's Eastern Europeans fleeing war and oppression
before, during, and after WWII. The play, presented by the Atlantic Theater Company,
is
based on three real-life exiled artists: the Czech filmmaker Karel Reisz; the
Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska; and the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. Karel,
magnificently portrayed by Martin Moran, was a Jewish refugee from
Czechoslovakia sent to Britain just before the war, when he was a child. Elzbieta, a celebrated
actress in Poland, sacrifices her career when she follows husband, renowned
American journalist David Halberstam, to New York in the 1960s; her story is
illuminated by Guare (making his off-Broadway acting debut) and Omar
Sangare. Born into Polish high society that stifled his spirit, Witold,
brilliantly played by David Pittu, gets exiled in Buenos Aires, Argentina at
the outbreak of the war and remains there for 25 years. These three,
beautifully-told tales of melancholic lives are both heart-rending and buoyant.

***

This play isn't about
immigration, but it was written by a Norwegian
and it's worth seeing before June 9, 2013:

BAM
is known for its imaginative productions of Strindberg and Ibsen and this
rendition of The Master Builder doesn't disappoint. It's always exciting to see
John Turturro on stage and this
affecting portrayal of Solness is
particularly moving. His real-life wife, Katherine Borowitz, does a beautiful
job as his onstage wife Aline, and
newcomer Wrenn Schmidt is knockout as young, beguiling Hilde. The play was written in 1892 and the text still sparkles. The
striking set was designed by a true master builder, Santo Loquasto.

(Become a BAM member so
you don't miss out on any of the upcoming action!)